There are rumblings that the downtown post office, which opened in 1962 to much fanfare, may be sold. The 16-acre parcel of land is where many things could converge: the bayou, light rail, bike paths and Amtrak.

Photo: Nick De La Torre

There are rumblings that the downtown post office, which opened in...

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Morris Architects, a firm descended from the complex's original architects, envisions a transit hub that moves Franklin Street behind the 1962 building.

Photo: Morris Architects

Morris Architects, a firm descended from the complex's original...

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I'd like to think that the post office complex could once again be part of something glamorous. The Urban Land Institute recently set teams of student developers to dreaming up new uses for the site. And here, we see another drawing from Morris Architects' spec proposal: a modern development built around the post office's 1962 office building.The proposed pedestrian-friendly, bike-friendly, bayou-friendly development would be very different from 1960s Houston. But once again, it could be something the city is proud of.

Photo: Morris Architects

I'd like to think that the post office complex could once again be...

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For a while, the U.S. Postal Service has rumbled that it plans to vacate Houston's downtown post office at 401 Franklin. The move would open up an extremely attractive 16-acre tract for development -- and would likely endanger the 1962 building designed by architecture firm Wilson, Morris, Crain & Anderson. Fans call it a classic example of mid-century modernism. (Bill Maris (c) Esto)

Photo: Bill Maris (c) Esto

For a while, the U.S. Postal Service has rumbled that it plans to...

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When the post office complex opened in 1962, Houstonians rhapsodized about its size and cutting-edge technology, noting them as a sign of the fast-growing city's potential. Here, at the facility's grand opening, Congressman Albert Thomas gives Postmaster Granville W. Elder a flag that had flown over the White House. Thomas also read the crowd a message from President John F. Kennedy. The new post office, Kennedy wrote, marked "an important forward step in the progress and development of one of this country's largest and most important cities."

Photo: UNKNOWN

When the post office complex opened in 1962, Houstonians...

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The complex at 401 Franklin had three parts: an office building; a modern plaza; and a low-slung, two-story processing facility. The old Houston Press called the building "a $14 million five-story alabaster beauty."

Photo: Bill Maris (c) Esto

The complex at 401 Franklin had three parts: an office building; a...

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The post office building's best feature may have been the view of its elevated plaza and the downtown skyline beyond, which was still dominated by brick and stone. Glass-and-steel high-rises were soon to come.

The post office's low-slung, factory-like building was vast. It's shown here before the mail-sorting machines had been moved in.

Photo: Downtown Post Office

The post office's low-slung, factory-like building was vast. It's...

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Here: The same space, with the mail-sorting equipment added. The mail-sorting area contained more than five miles of mail-carrying conveyor belts.

Photo: Downtown Post Office

Here: The same space, with the mail-sorting equipment added. The...

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In 1963, the Houston Post Office -- always ready for the next new thing -- was one of the first in the country to introduce zip codes. Here, a "Miss Christmas Zip Code" promotes their use. "Her zip code," said the Houston Chronicle cutline, "is 36-24-36."

Photo: Downtown Post Office

In 1963, the Houston Post Office -- always ready for the next new...

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Downtown Post Office

Photo: Houston Chronicle Library

Downtown Post Office

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Downtown Post Office

Photo: Houston Chronicle Library

Downtown Post Office

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Downtown Post Office

Photo: Houston Chronicle Library

Downtown Post Office

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Downtown Post Office

Photo: Houston Chronicle Library

Downtown Post Office

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Renovations wiped away the sexy Mad Men look, with its sleek '60s style and minimalist furniture. These days, the look is glum and institutional.

Photo: Michael Paulsen

Renovations wiped away the sexy Mad Men look, with its sleek '60s...

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That glumness reflects how our attitudes toward post offices have changed. Once they were centers of civic pride. These days, we just hope to get out fast.

Photo: Steve Campbell

That glumness reflects how our attitudes toward post offices have...

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US Postal Worker, Linda Harris, grabs an envelope from a last-minute income tax filers as they and others visited the Downtown Main Post Office on the final day to file, Monday, April 18, 2011, in Houston.

Photo: Michael Paulsen, Houston Chronicle

US Postal Worker, Linda Harris, grabs an envelope from a...

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A redbud tree flowers in front of the downtown post office in March 2003.. Redbuds blossom in early spring, becoming covered in pink or purple buds before the leaves appear.

Photo: Carlos Antonio Rios, Chronicle

A redbud tree flowers in front of the downtown post office in March...

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Belinda Gayle Williams receives motorist Ruth Wallace’s annual letter to the Internal Revenue Service on Wednesday at the main post office downtown.

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Chronicle

Belinda Gayle Williams receives motorist Ruth Wallace’s...

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Janette Garza fills out address on the envelope for her tax returns as she waits in short line at the U.S. Post Office in downtown Houston on April 15, 2009. Photo by Mayra Beltran / Houston Chronicle

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Houston Chronicle

Janette Garza fills out address on the envelope for her tax returns...

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Carol Davis drops off company tax returns as she waits in short line at the U.S. Post Office in downtown Houston on April 15, 2009. Photo by Mayra Beltran / Houston Chronicle

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Houston Chronicle

Carol Davis drops off company tax returns as she waits in short...

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The downtown Post Office is being put up for sale. Whoever buys the property must build a replacement processing facility for the postal service as well as proide a retail space in or around downtown for consumers. (Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2009, in Houston.

Photo: Steve Campbell, Houston Chronicle

The downtown Post Office is being put up for sale. Whoever buys the...

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Lisa Pantoja walks down the steps of the downtown post office. The downtown Post Office is being put up for sale. Whoever buys the property must build a replacement processing facility for the postal service as well as proide a retail space in or around downtown for consumers. (Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2009, in Houston.

Photo: Steve Campbell, Houston Chronicle

Lisa Pantoja walks down the steps of the downtown post office. The...

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Boyd Brown uses the ATM in the lobby of the downtown post office at 401 Franklin.

Photo: Steve Campbell, Houston Chronicle

Boyd Brown uses the ATM in the lobby of the downtown post office at...

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Postal worker T.K. Lewis collects a tax return at the main post office downtown Tuesday. The post office started curbside pickup of tax returns at 4 p.m. and remained open until midnight.

Stan McCormick, of the Harris County tax office, wheels a pallet of...

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Teri Kaplan (cq), of Alief, has her packages weighed by Anette Jackson (cq), Monday, Dec. 18, 2006, at the Post Office in downtown Houston. Monday is the last day cards and packages will be delivered by the Christmas holiday by first class mail. Kaplan contact info 713.802.5910 (Nick de la Torre/Chronicle)

Photo: Nick De La Torre, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Teri Kaplan (cq), of Alief, has her packages weighed by Anette...

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Billie Williams sorts packages at the main post office on Franklin St. downtown, 12/15/03. Today is considered the busiest postal day of the year. (Buster Dean / Chronicle) HOUCHRON CAPTION (12/16/2003): postal worker Billie Williams sorts through packages at the main post office on Franklin Street on Monday as gift-givers bring in packages by the armload.

Photo: Buster Dean, Houston Chronicle

Billie Williams sorts packages at the main post office on Franklin...

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CONTACT FILED: U.S. POSTAL SERVICE - HOUSTON
Post office employee Iwanda Thomas pours mail into the initial sorting machine at the downtown post office Monday morning as part of the holiday rush. Monday was supposed to be the busiest single mail day for the post office with people all over the country mailing cards and packages to get around the country before the 25th. 12/16/02 Karl Stolleis/Houston Chronicle. HOUCHRON CAPTION (12/17/2002): Postal Service employee Iwanda Thomas pours mail into the initial sorting machine at the downtown post office on Monday, the season's busiest postal day.

Photo: Karl Stolleis, Houston Chronicle

CONTACT FILED: U.S. POSTAL SERVICE - HOUSTON
Post office employee...

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CONTACT FILED: U.S. POSTAL SERVICE - HOUSTON
Post office employee Iwanda Thomas pours mail into the initial sorting machine at the downtown post office Monday morning as part of the holiday rush. Monday was supposed to be the busiest single mail day for the post office with people all over the country mailing cards and packages to get around the country before the 25th. 12/16/02 Karl Stolleis/Houston Chronicle

Photo: Karl Stolleis, Houston Chronicle

CONTACT FILED: U.S. POSTAL SERVICE - HOUSTON
Post office employee...

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CONTACT FILED: U.S. POSTAL SERVICE - HOUSTON
Taxi driver Willie Wright shows his Christmas spirit as he stands in line at the downtown post office Monday morning and gets his Christmas cards ready for mailing. Monday was supposed to be the busiest single mail day for the post office, with people all over the country mailing cards and packages to get around the country before the 25th. 12/16/02 Karl Stolleis/Houston Chronicle. HOUCHRON CAPTION (12/17/2002): Taxi driver Willie Wright gets in the holiday spirit while waiting at the downtown post office Monday.

How different was Houston in 1962? Imagine this: People were thrilled about a big, expensive new post office. In 1962 Texas, big and expensive were always good. And post offices were important.

For months, the city's newspapers reported breathlessly on the complex under construction at 401 Franklin, at the north edge of downtown.

"The House That 4-Cent Stamps Built," as a headline in the old Houston Press dubbed the "rambling, palatial structure," was believed to be the most modern post office in the country. More than five miles of conveyor belts would carry mail inside the enormous long, low factorylike block where mail would be sorted - a place "so big that electric scooters are being provided for executives to make their rounds."

The new post office's public face, though, wasn't the sprawling two-story factory block, but the little five-story office building that stood front and center of it. Designed, like all of the complex, by Houston architecture firm Wilson, Morris, Crain & Anderson, the building was proudly modern, with its upper floors covered by a cast-concrete screen - an assertion that Houston looked not to the past, but to the future.

View from a plaza

The complex's opening ceremonies were "like the coming of Halley's Comet," enthused the Press. "What Houston-ians watched today at 401 Franklin will not be repeated in their lifetime." The new post office, the article proclaimed, was a "five-story alabaster beauty."

To a city in love with its own future, the complex symbolized great things: growth, change and modernity. President John F. Kennedy, in a message read by Rep. Albert Thomas, called it "an important forward step in the progress and development of one of this country's largest and most important cities." And Deputy Postmaster General H.W. Brawley pronounced it a symbol of the progress that had swept Houston forward "with the force of a tidal wave."

The post office's front plaza - a super-modern affair designed by landscape architect Fred Buxton - had the rare advantage of height, elevated on a bayou bank to look out over pancake-flat Houston. And on that opening day, when celebrants admired downtown, they had a terrific view of the Houston skyline - a skyline dominated by brick and stone, a skyline whose tallest building was 36 stories. The tidal-wave future was only getting started. And the post-office plaza was the perfect place to watch it roll in.

Things converge

Fifty years later, that future is here, and Houston is a wildly different place. We no longer think that it's good for a government building to be "palatial." Post offices strike us as throwbacks to the pre-digital age. And the city's future no longer seems guaranteed. These days, progress feels hard-won. The tidal wave might sweep us forward, but if we're not careful, it could flatten us instead.

In the past couple of years, there have been rumblings that the U.S. Postal Service plans to leave 401 Franklin and sell the 16-acre complex - a prospect that sets developers, architects and planners atremble. It's not just that the parcel of land is large enough to form its own downtown district. It's also that the land is a place where many things could converge: Buffalo Bayou, Houston's light-rail line, bike paths, even Amtrak and proposed commuter-rail lines. Done right, that post-office complex could become a major hub of activity - a symbol of sweet progress, at a time when we no longer count on it.

The Urban Land Institute, a national group that promotes good development, last month picked the complex as the project for its 2012 Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition. Graduate-student teams from across the country will dream up new uses for the old post-office site in hopes of winning the $50,000 prize.

The competition is hypothetical; there's no plan to build the winner's idea. But even so, the competition alarmed Houston preservationists, who worry that in describing the site, the contest organizers seem to encourage razing it and starting with a clean slate. In Houston, such hypothetical ideas have a way of becoming realities.

Stephen Fox, Houston's best-known architectural historian, emailed other preservationists to alert them to the whispered threat. The post office, he noted, won a Design Award from the Texas Society of Architects in 1963. It is, he wrote, "an outstanding work of mid-century civic architecture," and as of this year, would be eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.

Keep memories alive

Fox thinks interesting things could be done not just with the "alabaster beauty" office building (now sadly in need of TLC), but also with the enormous low-slung industrial building where mail was once sorted.

"Can you imagine a green roof there?" he asks. "There's lots of room for plantings."

Ramona Davis, head of the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance, suggests that the five-story office building should be repurposed in part as an Amtrak station. Houston's current one - an unassuming little building a block away - is "an embarrassment," she wrote.

Architect Ben Koush, who's working on a book about Houston's modern architecture, worries that the front plaza, with its astounding view of downtown, could be lost. Landscapes from the 1960s are already rare, he notes, and this one was particularly well matched to its building.

At any rate, I'm hoping that the student teams take note. Rehabilitating buildings is far more ecologically sensitive than razing and building from scratch. But it's also good for a city's soul; it keeps its memories alive. And this particular place, built just as Houston was coming into its heyday, is a reminder of a time when the future seemed nothing but bright.